I’ve always loved to make stuff. I’ve been lucky enough to try my hand at various mediums like ceramics, watercolor, encaustic, chalk, pen, pencil, fabric, you name it; but I found where my true love lies is in working with wood, lead, paper, ink and old machinery that was in action long before computers were on the scene. The inspiration for my pieces has always come from the natural world. Mother nature’s beauty, influence, and mystique have inspired me so much so that I chose two avenues to pursue: science and art, teaching high school biology and environmental science and heading up a small woodblock printmaking and letterpress studio.

My interest and love of science and art have come from a lot of time spent outdoors and I’ve got my friends and family to thank for that! Through my studies and experiences, I’ve come to realize I’m attracted to the process side of things—carving the wood, hand-feeding each piece through the press, figuring out how things work and fit together, setting up experiments to answer questions–you never really know how it's going to turn out, until the end. It was exactly the process that I was lucky enough to experience firsthand in Panama this past summer—a truly amazing scientific process involving incredible scientists and international research. One aspect that really struck me after getting to spend time with these wonderful minds (and I have to say in some sweaty conditions out in the field) was how important their science notebooks are to their scientific process–it’s something I have mentioned when teaching, but to actually see it for real, well, there is no substitute for that. It was hard to miss the beautiful and artistic compilation of all their thoughts, measurements and notes about samples collected that were carefully recorded in these mini works of art that oftentimes, span years of research and travel across continents and back.

Wanting to record my own experience, I decided to keep my own daily visual notebook, which really in the end served a dual purpose: 1) Experience the processes that scientists really do and 2) Practice drawing (between you and me, drawing has always been my limiting factor in my artwork–so many ideas waiting to get out of my head, but are held up by a perfectionist attitude). Like any other skill you want to be better at, it’s all about the practice, so I assigned myself a mini challenge (can’t be helped, I’m a teacher) and gave myself parameters to move past my snails pace of drawing:

I had to draw in a notebook with NICE paper (a smaller notebook made it seem doable)

I had to draw something small everyday (again, small made it less daunting of a task)

I could only draw in pen (no pencil because that would mean I had erasing capabilities and I often don’t know when to stop) – whatever was put down on the paper, had to stay

I could add a little color in the form of watercolor washes

I have to admit that after a few days of drawing everyday, as agonizing sometimes as it was to sit down and start, in the end I realized I loved it, and the starting wasn’t so agonizing anymore. Some of the results were a few small drawings from real specimens: Megalodon teeth and various plants, and a daily journal filled with images of amazing activities and many memorable experiences. The notebook experience among many experiences from the Panamanian adventure, will serve as inspiration for both my artwork and for the kids for the current school year!